JPMorgan Chase claims crown as biggest bank, for now

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s proposed mortgage settlement is being challenged by the government.

In the never-ending battle to be the biggest U.S. bank, the advantage now goes to JPMorgan Chase over Wells Fargo. On Tuesday, the New York colossus with a $240 billion market value passed the San Francisco giant, whose market value slipped to $235 billion.

Back in 2012, Wells leaped ahead after JPMorgan struggled with massive losses after the infamous "London whale" trade. But now Wells has plenty of its own problems after federal regulators found that thousands of employees created sham accounts to meet internal sales targets.

The back-and-forth between JPMorgan and Wells shows just how fleeting it is to be king of the banking hill. Indeed, in this era of too-big-to-fail banks, no institution seems eager to talk about just how very large it is and what sort of systemic risk it might pose to the financial system. At the moment, JPMorgan has a mind-blowing $2.5 trillion in assets and Wells has a nearly-as-mind-boggling $1.9 trillion.

The folks who run JPMorgan and Wells are also well aware that not so long ago the largest bank by market value was Citigroup, a bank that over the past decade has inflicted plenty of pain on itself and U.S. taxpayers. Citi's market value today is about half that of JPMorgan or Wells.

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